Telecommunication application servers that provide services using either VOIP (Voice over IP) or traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) are known. However, one problem encountered by all applications is that VOIP platforms use data formats that are optimized for IP based networks. Most of the TTS (text-to-speech) and ASR (automatic speech recognition) systems that are in the industry today were designed for public switched telephone networks (PSTNs) and do not support native VOIP formats. Because of this, all of the VOIP data needs to be converted into a format that that can be handled by the ASR and TTS subsystems. However, such conversion is expensive and further, if every new component is handling data in a different way then multiple simultaneous conversion is not possible.
From the above it is evident that an improved mechanism is required that can couple external functional components like ASR, TTS, etc., into a VOIP data path to provide reach functionality for a VOIP application.
According to one aspect of the invention, voice bridging enables coupling between VOIP and external components in a scalable manner to support a large subscriber base.
According to another aspect of the invention, a software base data coupling module non-intrusively couples data from external components, such as TTS/ASR into a VOIP application.
According to another aspect of the invention, intelligent voice bridging controls the duration that such coupling is effective to equal the time that the functional component is required, hence enabling multiplexing of the same resource across many users and hence increasing efficiency for resource utilization. One embodiment enables multiple functional components to be inserted in a non-intrusive manner into the existing VOIP data path.
According to another aspect of the invention, a method and a mechanism couples data from industry standard functional components into the data path of a VOIP (Voice Over IP) application. In one embodiment, the VOIP application creates a special User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port that is used to receive bridge data that has to be sent to the VOIP application. The bridging may couple voice data in either a single direction called half-duplex mode or in both directions at the same time, known as full-duplex mode. The half-duplex mode of coupling may be done downstream or upstream.
According to another aspect of the invention, a cache is maintained that may be activated for the downstream data. Caching adds additional optimization so that, in the event of a replay request, the data from the cache may be played rather than having to generate the data again from the source.
According to another aspect of the invention, packets provided from the external application include a session number that may be used to identify portions of returned data to be played back at a user""s request.
A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the invention herein may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the attached drawings.